10:10am. Email from my sister. Completely forgot she & her husband are visiting this weekend. Must go grocery shopping. Must clean guest bedroom.

11:45am. Totally just crushed that sales report meeting. I’m the master of excel spreadsheet. The office should really just call me: =SUM(Awesome:Genius).

12:07pm. I just spilled guacamole on my pants. I have a green splotch on my upper thigh. Awesome. It’s only lunch time on Tuesday, and I’m wishing it was 5pm on Friday.

Ever have one of those days? Where it feels like you just can’t get ahead? Every little thing side punches the success train off the tracks. Somedays, you deserve a freakin’ medal, just because you made it to lunchtime without totally losing your head. It is still attached, right?

Each day brings a new mountain to climb. Each and every day you are presented with thousands of opportunities to make a decision that moves you towards a goal or sets you farther from it. Maybe those decisions include taking on that extra project at work, even though you know your plate is already overflowing with responsibility. Maybe your goal is to simply get your kids out the door clothed and fed and on time for school. Regardless of what your daily mountains look like, do you ever wish you could just say “STOP. I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN. AND IT’S PRETTY DAMN GOOD.” Even if you don’t feel that way today, you deserve that opportunity to have your efforts be recognized. And yeah, there are times in our life where we absolutely deserve a medal for simply making it through a random Tuesday.

Lately, in the race industry, handing out finisher medals for “just a 5K” has been criticized. Well, here at Her Madison Half Marathon & 5K – we don’t feel that way. Because the phrase “just a 5K” is not welcome at our event. Our entire staff, volunteers, and participants, are trained that phrase is not to be spoken. Ever. Like, ever ever. After all, “just a Tuesday” can be really hard, exhausting, and getting through it might take more effort than we could ever know.

When designing the finisher medals for Her Madison, it was very important to our team that the 5K medal is the exact same size as the Half Marathon medal. To us, there is no distinguished difference in between the distance. As with our t-shirt reveal (read about it here), you know that our race is not about how far or how fast you go. What matters to us is that you’re out there. And that deserves a medal.

You might notice that our medal design is the same shape and size as the 2015 medal. This is on purpose, and we don’t plan to change the shape or size next year, either. What you will notice is that the color will be different. It is our goal that women from all over the country will collect our medals and continue to participate in our event to grow their beautiful bouquet of Her Madison medals of all different colors. These medals are absolutely meant to be on display. We have some great ideas in the works for how you’ll be able to display your bouquet of medals; stay tuned for more later this year.

For 2020, our first year for the event, it took a lot of Believing in ourselves that we could actually make this event happen. We had to Believe that Madison needed a women’s only event. We had to Believe that we were the team that could make it happen. We had to Believe that if we put in the effort, it would be successful. We also Believed that there were women out there that needed to believe in themselves. And Her Madison was the perfect opportunity to do that. The 2019 medal was turquoise, one of the primary event colors, and corresponds with the Fellow Flowers Believe Flower.

The other primary Her Madison color is red. And Red is all about Strength. “/Red/ :: Love. Passion, commitment and spirit. Caring for the world around you. Bringing it – every damn day. It takes strength to do what you love.” – Fellow Flowers, Red. The Red Flower actually has some personal meaning to me. The Red Flower was the first flower I owned, and it was gifted to me by Mel & Tori, founders of Fellow Flowers, last year on Her Madison race weekend. When days get hard, and event planning has me stressed out, I read the Red Flower card. “Love. Passion, commitment and spirit” – Yes. Especially when I was told to my face that a women’s half marathon would never work, and I didn’t have what it takes to make it happen. ‘Caring for the world around you” – Yep. Even when others don’t care for you. Continue on the high road, showing love, always. “Bringing it – every damn day.” –Yep. You can be certain of that. No one will outwork our team. Her Madison is Red, through & through.

The 2016 medal will represent STRENGTH. The strength it takes to get through a 5K, the strength it takes to get through a half marathon. The strength that it takes to get through those really hard random Tuesdays. The medal will be a reminder of the moment that you let yourself believe and the strength that carried you through to the finish line.

The medal will hang around your neck, and will compliment and stand out against your blue 2016 Her Madison shirt. Wear your medal proudly, ladies. It will sparkle in the shining sun, and it will forever be yours. The Moment. The Medal. The Memory.